The Church’s focus at this time of the year is based on the theme of the family.

The Family Is Our Connection To God: Likewise, we receive life from God through our parents; they from their parents; and then repeated over and over all the way back to God, who is the author of all life, beginning with Jesus Christ, made in the image and likeness of God.

“The Baby Jesus is born soon and needs a pure and clean manger to be placed in. Your soul is His manger. Enjoy the divine infant laying on you and resting in peace. See the multitudes coming to adore the Christ child in you! O, Holy night!!”

A friend of mine in Mount Angel, Oregon, Tony Morris, texted me this meditation a few years ago. I think that it captures the essence of our spiritual pilgrimage each December from Nazareth to the City of David, Bethlehem, the House of Bread.

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, cycle B, the Church presents us with the powerful stories of both the Annunciation and Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth. The Annunciation was a favorite of Catholic artists, especially the great Fra Angelico. The Madrid Annunciation (tempera on panel, c. 1435, Madrid: Museo del Prado) is one of the classic depictions of the event by this great master.

"Joy Is The Echo Of God’s Life In Your Soul"

So wrote Blessed Columba Marmion, OSB. If we have the Spirit of God in us, we cannot contain it. It comes out in incredible joy. We are able to rejoice because we have made it past the half-way point on our annual Advent pilgrimage to Bethlehem. Most of all we have the gift of faith. We have Emmanuel, God-with-us, on our journey and God will provide for all of our needs. John gave everything to show us Jesus. ‘The voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord!”’

Today’s gospel for the Third Sunday of Advent, Cycle C, again proclaims the role of John the Baptist as an essential player on the stage of Salvation History. This week’s pairing of Old and New Testament readings also makes it clear that the action upon the stage of human history is directed by the Holy Spirit. Annibale Carracci’s early17th century work, “Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness” (oil on copper, c. 1600, New York: The Metropolitan Museum), may offer some assistance as we continue our Advent preparation.

The Advent Season is a real call to conversion and renewal, not a temporary time of change.

Last week, Jesus warned us: ‘Watch!’; today, John the Baptist cries: ‘Repent…’ The desert is a place of purifying and of cleansing, with no distractions and even fewer sources of food and water; survival (or salvation) is the only thing that matters.

On this Second Sunday of Advent, Cycle B, we begin consecutive Sundays focused on the preaching of John the Baptist. Luca Giordano’s late 17th Century painting, Saint John the Baptist Preaching (oil on copper, ca. 1695, Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art), may help us with some visual cues to understand our call in this initial Advent encounter with John.

The image depicts John the Baptist traditionally, with the camel-hair garb, and the thin staff with a cross at the top, a common symbol associated with him, along with the red drape of the martyr. His halo, marking his holiness and the fact that he is the central figure in the image, offers a less traditional glow about his head and shoulders rather than the normal disc or circle above the head.

“It’s a busy time.” “I am worn out from all the running around.” “Sometimes it feels like one thing after another.” These are common phrases in the lexicon of most of us as we approach the Holiday Season each year. We have things to do, tasks to accomplish, and guests to entertain. On this First Sunday of Advent, however, we are invited to shift our focus. Christ reminds us, as we begin our journey to the manger, that we must keep watch.

“Be watchful. Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.”

This weekend, the time has come for us to begin our yearly pilgrimage to Bethlehem. Last week we finished up the liturgical year of 2023 with the Parable of the Final Judgment in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 25. Today we pick up at essentially the same place, except we are now in St. Mark’s Gospel, which will be our Gospel Scripture for 2024.

Jesus Christ is the Same Yesterday, Today and Forever

We wrap up this Liturgical Year of 2023, as always, with the Solemnity of Christ the King, or as it’s now more formally known The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe In sports terms, this Sunday is our Catholic Super Bowl or Game 7, and we learn about the Final Judgment, the big decider, today. The test of true holiness is how we treat one another. Are you an obedient follower of Jesus, the Good Shepherd: humble, maybe suffering silently, and treating others in our community well? Or are you a wild goat...? To be with God and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven is our Christian destiny.

"When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls"
The Wisdom of God is personified as ‘woman’ in last week’s and this weeks’ First Readings. These readings and the parables are a call to use our God-given talents wisely and well in order to do God’s work to build the Kingdom. We should never be afraid of God, and we should always have complete and total trust and confidence in the Lord.

We get to know Jesus through our practice of living the faith, through the Sacraments. He knows us best through our attendance at Mass, by receiving Him in the Eucharist. What is this oil that is so prized by the wise and the prudent? The oil is faith and it is also what we do with our precious faith: in other words, how do we light up our world by living out our faith.

“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt 23:11-12).

We are now in the Holy Month of November and in our Scriptures today we are in the Holy Week in the Holy City of Jerusalem. Jesus and His Twelve Disciples have been on their final Passover journey after three years together. Now, Jesus criticized the Pharisees and scribes for many reasons, and one of those reasons was their wanting to be better than everybody else in public and receiving honor and praise.

Jesus says: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the Shema Prayer, the most famous prayer in the Jewish faith, and the equivalent of the Our Father in the Catholic Church. Then He goes further: “The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

The Romans thought Caesar a God and since Julius Caesar, this new religion began, but his legendary assassination in 42 BC proved definitively that he was not a god.

Again, at the Temple in Jerusalem during Holy Week, in a high-stakes game and the ante is getting higher. Jesus’ parables of Judgment and Grace have fallen on deaf ears. Rather than repent, His enemies hardened their hearts against Him.

Everyone loves a wedding and especially the special party afterwards, which is a joyful feast. For the second weekend running, we celebrated weddings on Saturday mornings. We wish these two young couples truly blessed, long and fruitful married lives together. This weekend, we’ll celebrate four baptisms!

Reflecting on these Sacraments of Initiation and on the Vocation of Love, we consider what happens after we are baptized, after we become members of the bride of Christ. We are then clothed in our white baptismal garment, which represents the love of Christ, the charity of Christ, washing us of our sins.

I had to travel to Ireland this past week for the funeral Mass of Annette Higgins, my mother's youngest sister and my Godmother. When I grew up, there was no such thing as abortion in Ireland. I heard about it, of course, but it was a very strange, dark and alien concept, like the evils of World Wars I and II. I knew the Catholic Church spoke out strongly against abortion, and that was good enough for me.

In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew borrows some ideas from Isaiah’s song, but alters the central imagery: Israel is no longer the vineyard itself, but tenant farmers working for their landlord. Features of the parable reflect the condition of life in rural Galilee: it was common for land to be owned by absentee landlords, who will collect their rent in-kind from the tenant farmers at harvest time. The lengthy absence of the landlord alongside the harsh economic climate of the country often led to difficulties between landlord and tenant, sometimes leading to assaults on the agents sent to collect the rent.